Nick Hartfeld: He bounces between either being really smart or incredibly stupid/unreliable. He is a part of the city’s Harbor Patrol and is investigating the octopus incidents in the area. He ends up destroying the octopus, but not before he lets a couple of his coworkers get killed first, because he wouldn’t take the shot to save them.

Rachel Starbird: She works in the mayor’s office in New York City and has really no authority or power if her office. She just has to do meaningless and pointless work that provides nothing to this film. She is the Nick’s potential love interest, but the movie does a poor job in presenting it.

Captain J.R. Hensley: He runs the Harbor Patrol or is in charge of the precinct that Nick works out of. He is a complete jerk and moron, who refuses to believe the existence of the octopus until two of his men are dead and once Tony says the thing is real.

Tony: He takes over when Walter is violently killed by the octopus. The captain obviously likes him more, because when Tony tells him the octopus is real, the captain believes him. He’s the only other officer to survive, besides Nick, when they attack the octopus at its home in the river.

Walter: Part of the Harbor Patrol for the East River in New York City and is also the unit leader. He ends up getting dragged into the deep waters by the octopus where he is never seen again I assume.

Mayor: He only cares about how many people will be in New York for the 4th of July fireworks show and refuses to shut down the whole operation, even when he fully realizes that the octopus is real.

Octopus: A gigantic monster than is feeding on people in the East River. His size varies from scene to scene, from where he is as a big a tugboat, to where he is small enough to fit inside of a building. He randomly attacks things with no reasons and more often than not, he just kills people and does not eat them. What’s the point of killing someone if you’re not going to eat him as a killer sea creature? He is blown up by Nick and Tony near the end of the film.

LESSONS LEARNED+ Octopi don’t like drunks.+ Police officers are often sent to check out underwater cable problems.+ Homeless people have violins and are surprisingly quick and nimble. + Octopi can scream, make whipping sounds with their tentacles, and they gurgle quite a lot.+ Harbor patrol has spear guns that are loaded with explosive harpoons.+ Men gain super strength when they are facing a giant octopus.+ Octopi have yellow eyes and have razor sharp teeth.+ Octopi like randomly destroying things.+ Cranes are not the best weapon against a giant octopus.

STUFF TO WATCH FOR2 min – Give it up for the octopus ladies and gentlemen for shutting him up!12 min – Where is she getting all of this information from?20 min – My God! That was… that was… so fake!31 min – You would think harbor patrol would have some kind of weapon…35 min – I see a cow in that ink blot.42 min – Must not laugh… too much…43 min – I present the only reason why this movie is rated R.48 min – Does any cop in this city carry a gun or weapon?55 min – Where are all of these tentacles coming from is the main question with this scene.56 min – What do you know, a cop actually does have a gun.70 min – I see six divers, not 5 like mention before.72 min – SHUT UP!!!!!!! WHY WON’T YOU SHUT UP!?!?!?73 min – Haven’t I seen this before? Oh yeah, I see this footage every time the octopus appears.74 min – If you look closely in the background, the walls aren’t moving despite the fact that she is supposedly driving.79 min – Man that was lame.80 min – RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST A CAR!85 min – You can take more than one kid, you know.90 min – Why won’t you die and just bring this movie to an end?!Closing Credits – Almost all of the cast as a v in their name.

NOTABLE QUOTESCaptain J.R. Hensley: Let me get this straight. You’re telling me an octopus came up from the Hudson River, snatched a couple of tourists from a moonlit walk, and then came back the next night and deep-sixed a four ton tugboat?

Nick: We got the wrong guy. Heck, we got the wrong species.

THE PLOT

Oh dear God what have I done? I have venture in and scrapped bottom of the barrel once more. I had decided to rent a bunch of movies recently and I came across this one. I rented it on a whim, since I am a sucker for any movie that deals with killer animals, fish, bugs, and what not. I need to clearly think more about what I am going to rent first before getting it. Now, about the movie…

It opens up with us viewing the water surrounding New York City when we see a drunken couple walking around by the docks, with the guy being especially loaded. He jumps into a row boat and starts acting like a moron in front of the lady. Luckily, the octopus also hates him (like all of us who are watching this movie) and attacks him with its rubber tentacles and the magic of poor film editing. The beast drags him into the water, along with his idiot wife or girlfriend too.

After that, we turn to somewhere else where Harbor Patrol Nick Hartfeld, Walter, and their buddies are planning to infiltrate a drug operation, which turns out to be a huge bust. They accidently interrupt a judge, who is just fishing. Don’t understand why a judge would go fishing during the middle of the night, but I never had that strong fishing urge before. They are chewed out by their superior, Captain J.R. Hensley, when they get back to base.

They continue with their normal job when they soon discover the woman, from the opening scene, underneath the pier where they are working on underwater cables (Waste of a police officer’s time if you ask me). They call in backup to check out this and are soon confronted by Rachel Starbird, a woman who works in the mayor’s office. She asks them some random questions (Really random, like were the victims Russian tourists.) and tells them about the 4th of July special event, in which 2 million tourists from all over will be coming to the city. Can you say Octopus food?

Then, Rick makes a completely right, but highly speculative, deduction about a liquor bottle he finds near the area. He deduces that someone had the bottle and saw the whole crime take place. He and Walter actually track the witness, a homeless man named Mad Dog, to his home in the tunnels. They question the old man, who tells them it was an octopus that attacked the couple. They don’t believe him obviously and leave.

Later that night, the octopus attacks a random tugboat. The scene is confusing with the same pieces of footage used over and over while its tentacles constantly change size. It all ends with the tugboat turning into a toy and going ka-boom. Special effects everybody! Then later we see a TV station with actual video footage of the boat exploding. There was no camera in the area to get a feed at that angle of which the news showed.

Then out of the blue, Nick decides he actual believes the crazy octopus theory and tells his superior about it, who obviously does not believe him. Why does Nick suddenly believe this crazy octopus theory anyways when he actually dismissed it earlier? I think we just hit a plot hole! Another plot hole that we end up hitting is why the octopus is so huge. No reason is given, so I’ll just introduce the most common popular theory for anything that isn’t explained well. It is known as the Bad Writing Theory. It works for any given situation!

Now onto random scenes; Nick, Walter, and Rachel talk about the tugboat incident; Nick and Walter patrol the water; and Rachel is put in charge of watching 12 kids, representatives of different countries. It turns to night, with Walter and Nick now diving below a dock in search of a drunk who fell into the water and hasn’t resurfaced. Walter dives in first and wouldn’t you know it, our old friend the octopus shows up. It quickly attacks him in a confusing jumble of rubber tentacles, CGI footage, and real shots of an octopus. How cute, they think using real octopus footage will make this actually look tense, exciting, or possibly even credible.

Moronic police officer, aka Nick, does not realize Walter is being attacked by the beast. I question how he is missing the strange noises beneath the water, but he finally realizes something bad is going on once Walter resurfaces with a bunch of huge tentacles wrapped around him. Nick is unable to help save his friend and can only watch as the octopus drags his friend into the deep. I blame him so much for this.

No one at the station believes his story when he gets back, and frankly who would? Though I would really like to know what kind of logical explanation the police would have regarding Walter’s death. All they say is some sort of human did it, to which I say, a human single handily killed a scuba diver without scuba diving equipment, destroyed the pier, and has left most likely vast amounts of octopus DNA all over (presuming the CSI team checked for it)? I don’t feel comfortable going to New York with this sort of police department working.

Now we find Nick at the Statue of Liberty during the 4th of July festival. The octopus then pops out of nowhere and starts climbing the side of the statue. How no one on the island noticed until it latched onto the thing is beyond me, but that’s not the worse of that. While it is scaling the statue, the octopus’ tentacles are also attacking people on the ground, which I presume that those things must have a mind of their own. The octopus then rips the head off the statute and Nick goes flying out of it. We are treated to a cheesy green screen effect before we find out it was all just a dream. Ah yes, dream sequences! Doesn’t everyone love those? Well, DON’T YOU?!

The next day, Nick ends up working with Tony, the new unit leader. They track down a lead from the murder tourist case and end up arresting Mad Dog. The police finger him for the murders, but Nick still says it is the octopus. Still, they tell the press the East River is safe and is open for the tourists. I’m get that déjà vu feeling from a much better movie; how about you?

At a water treatment plant, the octopus strikes again! Very improbable, since the beast is outside in the water, yet its tentacles have somehow seeped into an underground part of the facility to attack a police officer. Also, its tentacles have once again changed in size and the octopus doesn’t eat its victim. Why bother attacking someone if it won’t eat the person? We go back to Nick, who has now teamed up with Rachel, to investigate the octopus outside of his work. She doesn’t believe him, but she gives him the benefit of the doubt. Why is she doing this? If you have to ask, you haven’t been paying attention.

They follow a lead that takes them to the water treatment plant, where they find the dead officer and are attacked by the beast itself. All the same problems from the previous attack apply to this scene as well. They get away and tell Hensley about it. He is skeptical, but he does admit that there is something strange going on. Hensley then tries to have the costal guard brought in to investigate, but the mayor refuses to bring in anyone.

We then get a pointless romantic hint between Rachel and Nick, but it goes nowhere and like everything else in this movie, we could all care less. It now turns to the 4th of July (for real this time) and they continue to investigate the octopus. Before they can do more investigating, both of them have to return to their real jobs. Rachel has to take the kids to the 4th of July Festival, while Tony and Nick investigate the judge’s empty boat. Apparently, the octopus attacked the boat and grabbed the judge. It also, somehow killed a diver below the boat. How it did it is the question, since the diver still has his gear on. Suddenly, the octopus appears for some reason and they have to feed the dead body to the beast to escape. I thought they said in an earlier scene that the octopus only hunts at night, not during the day. While I’m complaining, how is it staying alive on such meager rations? It only eats the people it kills one third of the time.

Now we learn that they are able to scientifically track the beast’s lair to middle of where the firework show will be on the water. Still, the mayor will not shut down the festival and believes that only 5 divers and couple of explosives will be enough to destroy the octopus. Time for a judgment call people! Who is worse? The mayor in this movie or the mayor in that certain shark flick?

So the guys now have to destroy the beast themselves, while Rachel is currently busy taking the kids. We then get a long and tedious amount of jump cuts between the police officers diving and searching below the water for the octopus while we see what the kids and Rachel are up to on the bus. Frankly, I could hardly care less about constantly seeing the kids on the bus and would like the film to focus more on the divers and octopus, but yet, during all the jump cuts, the kids on the bus get more screen time!

We luckily move onto more important things as the octopus attacks the divers. Nick acts like a complete idiot and does not shoot the damn thing until four divers are killed, despite having the perfect shot and actually aiming at the thing for 3 minutes. Anyways, he finally takes the shot, but it only angers the octopus. It takes off and starts attacking the Lincoln Tunnel, where Rachel and the kids are driving in. The tunnel starts collapsing, so Nick decides to blow up the octopus using some kind of explosive. Perfect planning, Nick! Blow up the octopus while it is next to the tunnel, which also can take some damage from the explosive as well! Brilliant! Damn this movie! When will my suffering end!?

Well the octopus goes kaplooey from the bomb, but Nick now has to go inside the tunnel to save everyone who is trapped in it. He manages to save everyone, including the kids, Rachel, and a couple others. As soon as he gets to the top and is back on dry land, guess who shows up? The octopus does! How much can you stretch a movie anyways? Luckily, Nick and Tony blow up it with a bunch of explosive harpoons. The day is saved finally and everyone lives happily ever after. At this point, I would take a sledgehammer to the DVD, but since I rented it, no fun for me despite the fact that this movie really and I mean really owes me after watching it.

Ladies and gentlemen, this was perhaps was one of the worst films I have ever witnessed. Worse than Jaws: The Revenge and Monster A Go-Go, but slightly above Frogs. The only redeeming thing that could be salvaged from this wreck is some of the acting. All the main characters and a few side characters did an alright job, but everyone else just really sucked. Bad special effects, terrible editing, horrible music, bad use of footage from the previous film, and plot holes everywhere add up to a movie that should be left at the bottom of the sea.